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Gail Roberta Martin (née Zuckman, born 1944) is an American biologist. She is professor emerita in the Department of Anatomy,
University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedic ...
. She is known for her pioneering work on the isolation of
pluripotent Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types. The more cell types a cell can differentiate into, the greater its potency. Potency is also described as the gene activation potential within a cell, which like a continuum ...
stem cells from normal embryos, for which she coined the term '
embryonic stem cells Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are Cell potency#Pluripotency, pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst, an early-stage pre-Implantation (human embryo), implantation embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4� ...
'. She is widely recognized for her work on the function of
fibroblast growth factors Fibroblast growth factors (FGF) are a family of cell signalling proteins produced by the macrophages. They are involved in a wide variety of processes, most notably as crucial elements for normal development in animal cells. Any irregularities in ...
and their negative regulators in vertebrate
organogenesis Organogenesis is the phase of embryonic development that starts at the end of gastrulation and continues until birth. During organogenesis, the three germ layers formed from gastrulation (the ectoderm, endoderm, and mesoderm) form the internal org ...
. She and her colleagues made contributions to
gene targeting Gene targeting is a biotechnological tool used to change the DNA sequence of an organism (hence it is a form of Genome Editing). It is based on the natural DNA-repair mechanism of Homology Directed Repair (HDR), including Homologous Recombinat ...
technology.


Personal life and education

Martin grew up in The Bronx, New York, the only child of a pharmacist and a schoolteacher. She graduated from James Monroe High School in 1960 and earned her A.B. in Zoology from the
University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...
in 1964. She then enrolled as a graduate student in the Department of Molecular Biology, University of California, Berkeley (UCB). It was a tumultuous time, because the student protest known as the Free Speech Movement took place in that academic year (1964–65), and Martin along with her fellow graduate students spent many hours in political discussion and activity. Martin did her doctoral work in Harry Rubin's laboratory, where she pursued several projects aimed at elucidating the mechanisms that control the growth of fibroblasts in vitro. She completed her Ph.D. thesis in 1971. It was during that time that she married Steven Martin, a British scientist who had come to Berkeley to do postdoctoral work in the Rubin laboratory.


Academic career

After completing her graduate studies, Martin and her husband moved to London. In 1973, she worked with Martin J. Evans at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
. Evans was then working with
teratocarcinoma A germ cell tumor (GCT) is a neoplasm derived from primordial germ cells. Germ-cell tumors can be cancerous or benign. Germ cell tumors typically originate from the gonads (ovary and testis), but can arise in other areas of the body. Extragonadal ...
s (a type of tumor), which are of interest because they contain pluripotent stem cells (known as embryonal carcinoma, Ccells), from which all the differentiated cell types in the tumor arise. During the two years she spent working in Evans' laboratory, Martin devised a protocol for isolating and maintaining EC cells in the undifferentiated state and for differentiating them in vitro. This work laid the groundwork for the future isolation of pluripotent stem cells from normal mouse and human embryos. In 1976, Martin and her husband returned to Berkeley, where he took up a faculty position at UCB and she began a year of postdoctoral work with Charles J. Epstein in the Department of Pediatrics at UCSF. During this period she and her colleagues demonstrated that female EC cells had two active
X chromosome The X chromosome is one of the two sex chromosomes in many organisms, including mammals, and is found in both males and females. It is a part of the XY sex-determination system and XO sex-determination system. The X chromosome was named for its u ...
s and could be used to study
X-chromosome inactivation X-inactivation (also called Lyonization, after English geneticist Mary Lyon) is a process by which one of the copies of the X chromosome is inactivated in therian female mammals. The inactive X chromosome is silenced by being packaged into ...
in vitro. In 1976 Martin joined the UCSF faculty and established her own laboratory, which was active until 2012. Her first major accomplishment was the isolation of pluripotent stem cells from normal mouse
blastocyst The blastocyst is a structure formed in the early embryonic development of mammals. It possesses an inner cell mass (ICM) also known as the ''embryoblast'' which subsequently forms the embryo, and an outer layer of trophoblast cells called the ...
s. This was also achieved by Evans and Kaufman in the same year. Subsequently, using sophisticated genetic methods that she helped to pioneer, Martin and her colleagues demonstrated the importance of FGF signaling in the development of many organs including the limb. Martin's laboratory also took the lead in studying the role of negative feedback mechanisms for regulating FGF signaling in the mammalian embryo These studies have led to an appreciation of the exquisite sensitivity of developmental and cell biological processes to even small changes in the level of FGF signaling. During her tenure at UCSF, Martin served as director of the Graduate Program in Developmental Biology (1986-2009). She also was responsible, in collaboration with a software engineer, Jonathan Scoles, for the development of a database that provides a description of all the genetically altered mice housed at UCSF. This online resource helps researchers determine if mice carrying a particular genetic alteration are available at UCSF and to find out whom to contact about the possibility of obtaining them. Access to this information has saved investigators considerable time and money in acquiring mouse models for their studies and been a stimulus to collaboration between researchers.


Honors

Martin has received numerous awards including an American Cancer Society Faculty Research Award (1979–83), a
Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...
(1991–92), the
Edwin Grant Conklin Medal The Edwin Grant Conklin Medal was inaugurated in 1995 by the Society for Developmental Biology in honor of the biologist Edwin Conklin. It is awarded annually to recognise a member of the society who has carried out distinguished and sustained rese ...
from the
Society for Developmental Biology The Society for Developmental Biology (SDB), originally the Society for the Study of Development and Growth, is an organization for scientists and professionals around the world whose research is focused on the study of the developmental biology, e ...
(2002), the
Pearl Meister Greengard Prize The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize is an award for women scientists in biology given annually by the Rockefeller University. The Prize was founded by Nobel laureate Paul Greengard and his wife Ursula von Rydingsvard in honor of Greengard's moth ...
(Rockefeller University), co-recipients:
Beatrice Mintz Beatrice Mintz (January 24, 1921 – January 3, 2022) was an American embryologist who contributed to the understanding of genetic modification, cellular differentiation, and cancer, particularly melanoma.Martha J. Bailey, ''American women in sci ...
and
Elizabeth Robertson Elizabeth Jane Robertson is a British developmental biologist based at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford. She is Professor of Developmental Biology at Oxford and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow. She is ...
(2007), and the,
FASEB Excellence in Science Award The Excellence in Science Award was established by the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) in 1989 to recognize outstanding achievement by women in biological science. All women who are members of one or more of the so ...
(2011). She received an honorary doctorate of science (DSc ed from University College London (2011). She has delivered numerous special lectures, including the George W. Brumley Jr. Memorial Lecture (Duke University) 2006, the UCSF Faculty Research Lecture (2008), and the Dame
Anne McLaren Dame Anne Laura Dorinthea McLaren, (26 April 1927 – 7 July 2007) was a British scientist who was a leading figure in developmental biology. She paved the way for women in science and her work helped lead to human in vitro fertilisation ...
Memorial Lecture (UK National Stem Cell Network), York, England (2011). She served as President of the Society for Developmental Biology (2006-2007), and was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
(1991) a member of the
US National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...
(Section 22, Cell and Developmental Biology) (2002) and a Foreign Member,
Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
(2015)


Selected publications

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Further reading

* Torassa Ulysses, 2001, "Profile: Gail Martin, UCSF scientist opened door; research has been built on her seminal work 20 years ago," at SFGATE, August 10, 2001, se

accessed 26 February 2015.
Stem Cell Research — Potential Solutions, Practical Challenges


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Martin, Gail R Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences University of California, San Francisco faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Living people Foreign members of the Royal Society 21st-century American biologists 1944 births Biologists from New York (state)